That's a Lot of Hoops, Part I

Okay, so now you know why I had surgery, but getting here was a lot more work than you'd think.

Back in January or February I started thinking about it seriously. I talked to Marie and we decided to look into it. I'd already mentioned it to my primary care doctor, and he said I was a textbook candidate for surgery. So... where to begin?

I called the surgeon's office and tried to schedule a consultation. But it turns out, you can't even schedule a consult until you attend their once-monthy informational seminar. Okay, when can I do that? The next evening, as it turned out, so Marie and I braved the pouring rain to go to the meeting. That was back in early March.


The seminar was actually very good, and we walked out with a huge packet of information about the risks, what to expect, what to do next, etc. So I called the surgeon's office the next day to schedule my consult.

What? I had to have a psych evaluation before I could even talk to the surgeon? Okay, schedule that, and while we're at it, let's go ahead and schedule the consult with the surgeon.

The psych eval wasn't quite a joke, but it was mostly pro forma. I got to take the MMPI for the fourth time in my life. (For everyone who didn't just click the link, the MMPI is 567 true-false questions aimed at figuring out my deepest, darkest secrets. It takes about 2 hours to finish, and it's tedious.) After the written portion of the program, I had a 30-40 minute face-to-face chat with the psychologist.

A week later, the consult with the surgeon was a bit less pro forma, but we went over the same risks that he covered in the seminar. It's mostly CYA stuff for insurance, but at least it was personal this time. He said I was a good candidate for gastric bypass, not surprisingly.

Believe it or not, that's only half the story (and the hoops).

Stay tuned for Part II of this tale.